Internships

Matt Lauer, George Stephanopoulos, Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon are among the television personalities who've met with Ferguson, Missouri, Police Officer Darren Wilson, Brian Stelter reports. There is some potential money for subjects of these bidding wars, Jim Moret explains -- in licensing photos. But mostly it's about comfort and timing. (CNN) | "When 'off the record' is used to protect not only what’s said in a particular meeting, but also the meeting itself, it becomes a tool not so much for journalists but for the sources seeking to own them." (WP)

Meanwhile, in Ferguson

Police said journalist Trey Yingst was standing in the road, but "as this reporter and a multitude of other witnesses saw firsthand -- and as was captured on video -- Yingst was not in the street." (HuffPost) | Judge: Police in Missouri can't stop reporters from recording them.

World Health Organization spokesperson Laura Bellinger mistakenly CC'd BuzzFeed reporter Tasneem Nashrulla on an email saying "My understanding is that BuzzFeed is banned." Tarik Jasarevic, another WHO staffer weighed in on another email -- Nashrulla was still CC'd -- saying only BuzzFeed reporter Jina Moore, who is covering Ebola in West Africa, was blacklisted. Jasarevic has not replied to a request from Poynter for elaboration on the thinking behind such an extraordinary (and petty) step. (Mashable) | In August, Jasarevic listed among his duties "being available to report to national and international media about the situation," but he was talking to someone who worked for Bono, not Jonah Peretti.

Bad internships are like ill-fated summer romances: You go into them with an open heart and all the hope in the world, only to find out after three sizzling months they were using you the whole time.

I’ve been fortunate in my fledgling career — and my love life — to steer clear of these summertime abusers. But like almost everyone working in journalism, I endured my fair share of harrowing situations while I was still figuring out which end of the pencil was up.

In the hopes of finding comfort in shared misery, I sent out a few tweets yesterday looking to hear about your worst internship stories. Here’s what you wrote back, on Twitter and through email:

The suit was originally brought last July by Jesse Moore and Monet Eliastam, who interned at MSNBC and “Saturday Night Live,” respectively, and “grew to include plaintiffs from other states,” Miller writes.

They’ll get “special bonuses,” and “a handful of plaintiffs would receive $2,000 to $10,000 each,” Miller writes. “Other unpaid interns who qualify to be included in the settlement would see far less — $505 on average, according to the legal filings.”

In 2012, Rachel Bien, a lawyer for the firm that represented Moore and Eliastam (and has helped lead the charge on lawsuits over unpaid internships), told Poynter, “The fact that interns get some benefit from the internship doesn’t mean the company doesn’t have to pay them for work that provides an advantage to the company.” Read more

For journalism students, October through January is internship application season, a pressure cooker of equal parts excitement and anxiety.

It’s our profession’s draft day. By mid-march, most of your classmates will have declared their intention to work at a journalism organization, like a prized NFL recruit putting on their team’s hat in front of a live studio audience.

Don’t get left behind. Some of the applications for the most prestigious news organizations are due in a few weeks time, so work up the courage to request that letter of recommendation, update your résumé and figure out how stamps work.

To make the process a little easier, I’ve compiled a list of some of the best journalism internships I could find on the Web, many of which I applied for myself when I was in school. Read more

Asked what they’d like to spend less time on, most said “Nothing.” But the skills they did mention aren’t easily grouped: copy-editing, local reporting and grammar make that list, but so do learning about WordPress and data visualization.

Good morning. We’re nearly there. Here are 10 media stories, plus a fact that made me sigh and quietly review my life choices: The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Ready to Die” came out 20 years ago Saturday.

Foley, Tice parents speak: “I really feel that our country let Jim down,” James Foley‘s mother Diane Foley tells Anderson Cooper. She says her son “was sacrificed because of just a lack of coordination, lack of communication, lack of prioritization.” (CNN) | Earlier this week, Austin Tice‘s parents told Clarissa Ward, “If an American citizen is held hostage overseas, you are discouraged and disparaged if you even consider paying a reward for a precious human child, because you don’t know where that reward money’s gonna go.

Donte’ Stallworth will join The Huffington Post as a politics fellow this fall, covering national security. The former NFL wide receiver will be paid during his six-month fellowship, HuffPost Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim tells Poynter in a phone call.

“He’s getting the standard pay that all the fellows are getting,” Grim said. “Obviously he’s not getting into journalism to get rich.”

Huffington Post has between two and three such fellowships going at any time, Grim said. Former University of Maryland student Amber Ferguson will also have a politics fellowship this fall. The last class included Sam Levine, David McCabe and Marina Fang; Levine is now an associate politics editor. Others who’ve landed full-time gigs at HuffPost after the fellowship: Paige Lavender, Samantha Lachman, Ibrahim Balkhy, Ashley Alman and Shadee Ashtari. Read more

The lawsuit brought by two former Condé Nast interns will be settled, Nicole Levy reported Friday in Capital New York.

The lawsuit, “Ballinger v. Advance Magazine Publishers, Inc.,” was filed in U.S. District Court in New York last June by Lauren Ballinger and Matthew Leib, who alleged they had been paid below minimum wage for their respective summer internships at W magazine and The New Yorker. About four months later, Condé Nast decided it would discontinue its internship program.

According to a staff memo, Levy reported, C.E.O. Chuck Townsend said “We believe that settling the lawsuit at this time is the right business decision for Condé Nast.” The terms of the settlement are still being worked out, Townsend wrote.

Although the first wave of internship and fellowship deadlines passed in November, numerous opportunities are still available for students, recent graduates and experienced full-time journalists. Get your applications in on time to take advantage of these opportunities in 2014 (listed in order of deadline — strikethrough means deadline has passed):

Investigative Reporters and Editors Student Mentorship Program IRE is launching a new one-year mentorship program to pair student journalists with professionals for “one-on-one guidance, advice, critiques and conversation, and online training opportunities.” Soon-to-graduate college students who are IRE members are eligible. Deadline: Dec. 20, 2013 Apply online

Associated Press Global News Internship Program Twenty students or recent graduates with experience in video enter a 12-week summer internship at AP’s U.S. and international bureaus covering breaking news.